Chapter 9: The Emergency Brake
1534 Words
His body chose death over another second of this.
DRAVEN POV
No.
No, no, no.
This can't be happening. Please, stay with me. Please, I begged.
My voice broke. I didn’t care. I didn’t even wait to check if the maids were gone, 'cause I know they won't dare stay back for one second after seeing the situation. After seeing me — blood on my hands, death in my eyes, carrying a broken wolf like he was made of glass and nightmares.
I took him to my room and laid him on my bed.
My room.
No one enters my room except my brothers and my parents. Not servants. Not guards. Not kings. The wards on the door would skin anyone else alive.
And here was a wolf lying on my bed.
A werewolf. On black silk sheets. On a mattress that had never felt warmth that wasn’t mine. Under a ceiling that had only ever seen me dream of blood.
But now was not the time to be thinking about that.
Now was the time to watch his chest.
Rise.
Fall.
Rise.
Too slow. Too shallow. Like breathing was a chore his body was tired of doing.
I looked at his face and was dumbstruck.
I don’t think I can ever get used to this.
How can someone be so insanely beautiful and devilishly handsome at the same time?
His skin was pale. Not the pretty kind. The kind you see on corpses. But even then — gods, even then — he was unreal. Dark lashes fanned against cheeks that were too hollow. Lips parted, cracked, with a bruise at the corner like someone hit him. Or like he bit it to keep from screaming.
His hair was black. Not Lucien’s void-black. Not Cassius’s ink-black. This was winter-night black. The kind that drank light. It was stuck to his forehead with sweat and blood and something I didn’t want to name.
There was a cut above his eyebrow. Still weeping. A shadow of a handprint on his throat. Fading finger marks on his wrist where the chains had been.
He looked ruined.
And he was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
I just stood there, lost in his beauty, that I didn't even notice when my brothers came in.
Didn’t hear the door. Didn’t hear their footsteps. Didn’t hear the world ending.
"DRAVEN, DRAVEN," Cassius called out for the third time, a little bit louder.
Nothing.
"DRAVEN." His voice finally broke through on the third try.
Sharp. Commanding. The voice he used when Lucien went too far. When Father was disappointed. When kingdoms burned.
I was snapped out of whatever trance I'd fallen into, staring at the adorable wolf that was lying on my bed.
Adorable. The word felt wrong. Too soft. Too small.
He wasn’t adorable. He was devastation. He was a prayer I didn’t know I’d been making for three hundred years.
"The doctor is here," announced Lucien.
Lucien’s voice was empty. No grin. No chaos. Just... nothing. That was worse than screaming.
The doctor came forward.
He was an elderly man. White hair. Stooped shoulders. Hands that had delivered me and my brothers into this world. Hands that had stitched us up after wars, after duels, after we tore each other apart for fun.
He has been the castle doctor since we were born.
But he was also scared of us.
Always had been. Even when we were children. Even when we bled and cried and asked him to make it stop. He did his job with shaking hands and eyes that never quite met ours.
He came closer to the little wolf and began checking him.
Little wolf. Cassius had called him that. It fit. He was curled in on himself, even unconscious. Knees drawn up. Arms around his ribs like he was still protecting himself.
The doctor lifted an eyelid. Pressed two fingers to his throat. Put his ear to his chest.
The room went silent.
All I could hear was the doctor’s breathing. And my mate’s. One too fast. One too slow.
"What is wrong?" I panicked when I noticed the look on the doctor's face.
It wasn’t confusion. It wasn’t concentration.
It was dread.
The kind of look men get before they tell you your kingdom is gone.
"My prince," he said in a shaky voice.
Why is he so scared? Has something worse happened to the little wolf?
Before I could speak, the doctor was already pinned to the wall with Cassius strangling him.
One second the old man was by the bed. The next, Cassius had him by the throat, feet dangling, against the stone wall.
Cassius’s face was blank. That was how you knew he was about to do something unforgivable.
"Tell us what is happening to our mate or I silence you forever," Cassius growled.
The words were low. Quiet. More terrifying than a shout.
The doctor became more scared when he heard what Cassius just said.
His eyes went wide. His face went purple. His hands scrabbled at Cassius’s wrist, but it was like trying to move a mountain.
Yes, everyone in the kingdom knew we were mateless.
It was law. It was fact. It was the tragedy they whispered about in taverns.
The Heirs of Duskmoor. Monsters without mates. Kings without queens. Wolves without pack.
Some had already concluded that we were meant to be mateless forever. That the gods cursed us. That we were too much blood, too much shadow, too much death to be loved.
So it was a huge surprise even to us when we found him — our long-awaited mate.
Our miracle. Our ruin.
"Speak," I said.
My voice didn’t shake. It couldn’t. If I shook, I’d shatter.
The doctor looked at me. Tears in his eyes. Not for himself. For the wolf.
"He... he is in a coma," the doctor whispered.
The word fell into the room like a stone in a pond.
"What?"
The word came from me. From Cassius. From Lucien.
Three voices. One break.
"What did you just say?" asked Lucien.
His voice was wrong. Too quiet. Too still.
Immediately he said that, Cassius released him out of shock.
The doctor fell. Hit the floor on his buttocks with a thud. Gasped for air. Clawed at his throat.
Poor thing.
I couldn’t find it in me to care.
"My prince, what I am saying is that he went through something very horrible and painful that broke him completely, and his mind pulled the emergency brake."
The doctor was crying now. Openly. Unashamed.
"Coma. It's the only defense the body had left when it's been pushed past its breaking point. His whole body shut down — mentally, physically, and emotionally. He had nothing else to give."
The words kept coming. Each one a knife.
Lucien froze.
Not like before. Not still.
Frozen.
Like someone had poured ice into his veins. Like his heart stopped. His eyes went wide. His mouth opened. No sound came out.
Emergency brake.
The words hit me like a punch.
Right in the chest. Right where the bond was. Right where I could feel his fear, even now, even unconscious.
Our mate's body decided death was better than another second of this.
Death.
He chose death.
Over us. Over waking up. Over living.
God, what did those guards do to him?
The question tore through me.
Or did they do something worse to him before we got there?
The thought made me want to vomit. Made me want to go back to that dungeon and start over. Make it slower. Make it hurt for years.
I asked myself.
But I already knew the answer.
I’d seen his face. I’d seen the chains. I’d seen the way he flinched at “OURS.”
They broke him.
They touched him. They hurt him. They made him choose nothing over us.
They will regret whatever they did to him.
The promise carved itself into my bones.
They will wish they never had met him.
I would make sure of it. I would paint the castle walls with their screams.
_"THEY WILL PAY"_ for every bit of tears he shed.
My voice wasn’t mine anymore. It was something old. Something monstrous. Something that had been sleeping since the seal was made.
They must pay.
Lucien moved first.
Silent. Deadly. Out the door.
Cassius was next. His hands were shaking. Not with fear. With rage.
I stayed.
I sat on the edge of the bed. Careful. Like I might break him worse.
I took his hand. It was cold. Limp. The fingers were scraped. Like he’d been clawing at stone.
I brought it to my lips.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. Into his skin. Into the bond. Into the space where he should have been.
"I'm so sorry we were late."
He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe deeper. Didn’t do anything.
But I stayed.
Because if his body chose death over another second of this...
Then I would sit here for every second he was gone.
And when he woke up — _if_ he woke up —
He would never be alone again.
And the world would bleed for what it did to him.
- Writer
